The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

I Will Never Like Myself
Saturday – Entry 37:I should be working on my second draft, but I am gripped by an epiphany I just had. One could say it is even an old epiphany rediscovered with new words.I will never like myself.This is the epiphany I had: I will never like myself. Not unless I change how I think. Somehow I have sewn my self-esteem into my goal making so that if I fail to meet my goals, I hate myself for the failure. If I meet the goals, then the momentary boost in self-esteem is erased the moment I select a new goal. And there is always a new goal. That is why I will never like myself. Now that I realize what I’ve been doing, I...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 29, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping Journaling Writing Therapizing ADHD Source Type: blogs

ADHD in the Face
The life of an adult with ADHD is always fun!One of the upstairs neighbors dragged their drippy garbage all down the stairs, across my doorstop, and throughout the breezeway. It bothered me deeply, so I asked management to clean it. They sent a guy with a high-powered steam cleaner to make short work of the mess. So I quickly grabbed my doormat, banged it out, dusted it off, stored it inside, then awaited my doorstep to be sparkly clean. Soon, their work was done, and I rushed outside to behold the wonderfulness. Everything was scrubbed and beautiful to behold except for the maintenance guy's muddy foot...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 25, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: ADHD Source Type: blogs

Go Water Your Eggs or Something
Monday - Entry 36:Not sure where to begin. Let’s try this: And then I was depressed.There. I can work with a beginning like that. It’s spells out the problem and hints that something happened before I made my realization.This day has been a hard one to get through. The sickness lingers, sapping me of energy & strength. Each cough is a gagging experience. My lungs burn. My head throbs. I’ve been sick like this since August 21st. I know. I know. I promised not to count the days. I haven’t. I just remember acutely the day my life ended. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t consider lying on the couch being produ...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 24, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Journaling Writing Depression Therapizing Source Type: blogs

What To Expect When You Call a Suicide Prevention Hotline
On National Suicide Prevention Day last week, many Twitter celebrities did their civic duty by retweeting the same two tweets over & over again, both pointing to suicide prevention hotlines. Some people who discuss suicide the other 364 days of the year were irritated by the superficial emphasis on hotlines—as if tweeting a hotline constituted quality support. Certainly, Twitter can be vapid. Twitter advocacy is usually about feeling charitable more than actually being charitable. But were suicide prevention hotlines as bad as people claimed? I generally considered a hotline the last option because there are so many...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 21, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping Depression Source Type: blogs

iPad Sketch: Overcoming Fear with Paper
If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that years ago my chronic motor tic disorder interfered with my ability to draw. I fought to keep my skills, but stopped trying in 2006 or so. I played at it from time to time, then I eventually stopped pursuing it altogether. I lost heart. I could remember how the pen was supposed to move on paper, but could no longer get my hand to comply. Something terrible had happened. More than the loss of skill, I had begun to be afraid of the blank page. Drawing wasn't fun anymore; it was stressful. Anything I drew that didn't compare to the skill of years past represente...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 15, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Visualizing Coping Therapizing Source Type: blogs

I will Survive. I Always Do.
Friday – Entry 35: We all deal with problems. Some of our problems are worse than others, some lesser. My problems seem to be health related. I realize they're not degenerative, or deadly, or even crippling, but they do make life just that much more difficult to manage. So I write about it. I write to communicate. I write to connect. I write to express. I write to cope. What follows is my attempt to cope and be positive. I am discouraged, but I can't allow it to become depression, so I write to be free of it. On August 21st, I became sick. Although I rushed in to see somebody at the Instacare clinic, they laughed and s...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 14, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Journaling Writing Depression Family Source Type: blogs

The ADHD Guide to Junk Pile Taming
There are beasts lurking in my home. They are jagged, ugly things that tower in corners. They sit by the TV and sprawl upon my kitchen counter. They come out at night in my bedroom to trip me in the dark. They are made out of forgotten intentions and the expensive dreams of the past whose sole purpose is to weigh me down and crush me under their toppling mass. Oh, who am I kidding? They're junk piles. After I spent January thru March sick with flu & pneumonia, then March until now recovering from a car accident, I have created the nightmarish horror of several junk piles. My normally organized receipt collection and c...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 13, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping ADHD Source Type: blogs

ADHD: Three Ways to Engage Hyperfocus at Will
A new take on "Carrot Top"A week has passed and I am still pleased with myself. My first draft is finished. Did I mention that already? I may have crowed about it earlier. What I am more pleased about, however, is that I used an unconventional approach to help me reach a goal and avoid a pitfall. I've already gone into detail about how growing out my hair, as silly a goal as it may seem, was perfect for the carrot I needed to start and finish my book's first draft within two months. But it also had the side-effect of helping me overcome ADHD's "depression after success". When an ADHD mind finds focus, it finds clarity. Thi...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 6, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping Writing ADHD Source Type: blogs

The Universe May Not Have Wanted Me To Write This Book, But I Did
Friday – Entry 35:It is done Three simple words that convey so much for me. At first I was writing a book on coping strategies using technology to deal with ADHD. When that proved to be too large a project for me at that time, I began to update my Depression: Ten Ways to Fight It Off article. Then that, too, proved to be too much. As I’ve written before, I had given myself a large carrot to get the book on Depression finished. I promised myself I would let myself get my next haircut at my favorite, pricey salon when I finished the book. I had just received a bad haircut, so I figured I had about six weeks to wrap thing...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - August 30, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping Journaling Writing Family ADHD Source Type: blogs

Messes
Sunday – Entry 34:In a little over three years I will be fifty years old. At some point I will have to mentally come to terms with this fact. I'd rather prepare for it now than have an existential meltdown. “What‽ I'm not twenty five anymore?"One of the things I will need to come to grips with is death. Ironically, my efforts since the divorce have been to avoid death as a solution to my problems, but I am of the age now where life may decide death is what is best for me. I can expect myself to complain all the way to the bitter last moment. What woke me with a start today was how much garbage I have accumu...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - August 25, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Journaling ADHD Source Type: blogs

I'm a Top 10 Social HealthMaker on ADHD? Has There Been a Mistake?
Something happened to me on August 6th. You may have missed it because the news cycle moves fast, and the CIA did indeed confirm the existence of Area 51. I mean, I can forgive you for not noticing the far more important news that happened to me while you and your UFOlogist buds raged against the taunting press release from our government that confirmed a poorly kept secret while still denying us the truth about President Obama’s extraterrestrial origins. I’m exhausted just writing that. Who has the energy to remember li’l ole me? Clearly, there are unexplained phenomena out there that demand attention. Kim Kardashia...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - August 22, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs

Technology Ushers in Digital Utopia for ADHD Minds, Not Dementia
Photo by Blake Patterson In the last week of June the internet news sites were all buzzing about “Digital Dementia”. Oh noes! Your kids’ brains be shrivelin’. Watch out! It’s the cell phone’s fault! From what I’ve read, “Digital Dementia” was coined by a German author selling a book and made popular in tech savvy South Korea. Yet despite the rise of book reading in youth demographics due in part to the soaring popularity of ebooks, or the rise in communication & empathy skills because of—not despite of—all that abbreviated texting, it is time for another luddite march on technology. Horrors! You...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - July 24, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: ADHD Source Type: blogs

The Final Bell Hasn't Rung Yet
Wensday - Entry 33⚡ I have to admit I'm a bit discouraged today. I seem to be spirally downward this year. 92 days of flu…a random car accident that put me in physical therapy for the next three months…now the spiffy replacement minivan is breaking down. That's half a year wasted to infirmity and trauma. I have so much to do, and money that needs to be earned. I'm tired of the sob story. I want the success story. I keep moving forward to it, but days like today put my progress at a crawl. At least I can still crawl, though, right⸮ Enforced optimism is tough when life beats you up, but the alternative is to qui...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - July 17, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Coping Journaling Depression Source Type: blogs

ADHD Irritability and the Story of My Hair
I want to tell you a story about my hair. It's been on my mind a lot lately. Why am I so fixated with it? Why do I make such a big deal about it? Who really cares? Could it be that the story about my hair is really a story about ADHD?When I was 18–19 I loved long, tall hair. Hey, it was the 80s. I would dye it with mousse (metallic copper was my favorite) and then hang out at new wave nightclubs. I could easily spend 30 minutes on my hair. I didn't think much of it. If you wanted a certain look you had to put in the work is how I saw it. And boy, did I work at it. With an Aiwa portable tape player at my side, and headpho...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - July 17, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Writing ADHD Source Type: blogs

Sketchcrawl #40 and Peace After the Trauma
My plans to participate in Sketchcrawl #40 were delayed due to the Brownie's severe seizure. I was a bit too preoccupied to think about drawing something in the hospital. The Leprechaun was too stressed to pose, and the Brownie lay on her bed, exhausted. So I drew the next day when things were back to normal. This is the first time I have drawn in my Moleskine in a small ice age. Drawing straight with a pen is challenging, but for some reason I felt confident enough to do it. I need to this again and again. After years of struggling to draw despite my tic disorder, I gave up in 2005. Now I'm trying to draw again—sta...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - July 17, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Visualizing Family Source Type: blogs